Supernova 1987a

This image, taken with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2in 1995, shows the orange-red rings surrounding Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The glowing debris of the supernova explosion, which occurred in February 1987, is at the center of the inner ring.

This is the first time that astronomers have measured the very fast moving gas ejected by the supernova explosion, which was invisible until observed by Hubble with the STIS ultraviolet detectors. This gas is glowing in the ultraviolet because it is slamming into the remains of the gas lost by the supernova star about 20, 000 years before it exploded.

Credit:

Peter Challis (Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and the SINS collaboration